22 best email newsletter templates and 11 resources to use right now

I get a lot of email newsletters. And honestly? I’m often unimpressed. A good newsletter is harder to create than most people realize; it’s not just about having something to say, it’s about packaging it in a way that makes readers want to click and keep coming back.

Download Now: Free Email Newsletter Guide

Over the years I’ve created and optimized plenty of newsletters (you can see two examples of my take here: this B2B newsletter teardown and this piece on the biggest mistake B2B companies keep making).

What I’ve learned, and what I want to share with you in this article, is that design, structure, and clarity are as important as content. Without them, even the best ideas can get lost in the inbox shuffle.

Table of Contents

• What is email newsletter design?
• Why use email newsletter templates for your next campaign?
• Free Email Newsletter Templates
• Best Places to Find Email Newsletter Templates
• How to Customize Email Newsletter Templates to Increase Engagement

What is email newsletter design?

When I say “email newsletter design,” I’m talking about the full experience, from subject line and preheader to layout, type, color, imagery, logo use, spacing, and how the content blocks stack on mobile.

Great design isn’t decoration; it’s how you make the message scannable, the hierarchy obvious, and the next step irresistible. Done right, every element feels cohesive and purposeful, which is exactly what keeps people subscribed and clicking.

Why use email newsletter templates for your next campaign?

I use templates with my clients to lock in the fundamentals, like grid, typography, button styles, and image ratios, so that anyone on the team can produce on-brand emails quickly. After all, building from scratch every time is slow (and unnecessary).

A good template is a guardrail and a time-saver: it keeps the look consistent, it survives a handoff to a new team member without readers noticing a wobble, and it frees the team up to spend energy where it matters most — on offer, message, and audience fit.

Bonus: When your template is tested across major clients, you avoid the “looks fine in Gmail, breaks in Outlook” headache.

Free Email Newsletter Templates

If done well, email newsletters can do wonders to help you build an engaged subscriber base, keep your business top-of-mind, and nurture leads that are already making their way down the funnel.

However, “done well” means more than just serving up great content. In fact, I think an often overlooked component of the newsletter creation process is the design.

Don’t have time to build out a custom template from scratch? I’ve scoured the internet for the best resources for email newsletter templates and compiled them below.

Many of the templates have also been pre-tested for compatibility with major email service providers (ESPs) via Litmus — a web service that allows you to preview the way your email will look on different email clients and devices.

Once you find one you like, download the template and customize it to fit your needs. Depending on compatibility, you can even try out newsletter layouts on Google, Outlook, and other email providers.

1. HubSpot

Start using HubSpot’s free Email Template Builder

Price: Free and paid options available.

Best for: Email marketers who have or wish to have multiple newsletters dedicated to different topics associated with your organization.

If you’re a Sales Hub user, HubSpot offers a great collection of email templates you can use for your next marketing email. No need to log out and search for a template in another marketplace; these templates are available to you right within the tool.

Key features:

• Customize your template without HTML or CSS.
• Choose from hundreds of templates tailored to your subject, content type, customer profile, and customer stage in your funnel.
• Templates can be customized using your unique customer information in the CRM.
• HubSpot’s email solution offers excellent analytics and A/B testing capabilities, so you can keep improving your marketing plan over time.
• Enhance your email campaigns by using HubSpot’s email tracking tool to gain valuable insights into open rates, click-through rates, and more—empowering you to refine your strategy with real-time data.

What I like: HubSpot provides a complete, end-to-end solution for all your marketing requirements since it provides access to our comprehensive CRM, centralizing your customer data.

Looking to create templates specifically for newsletters? HubSpot has you covered with our free specialized newsletter template builder.

2. Moosend

Price: Free for 30 days; Pro — $9/month; Moosend+ and Enterprise — custom pricing.

Best for: Marketers and professionals who want an affordable email template builder with advanced features. Transparent pricing with the option to add advanced features and build a custom plan (Moosend+).

Moosend is a powerful email marketing platform that makes it easy to design beautiful email templates.

Whether using one of the templates or creating your own from scratch, the built-in AI Writer will give you targeted, real-time suggestions. I love that you can improve your subject lines and email copy without ever leaving the editor.

With Moosend, you can also deliver personalized automated emails to subscribers based on their interests and website behavior. If you want to grow your audience, the platform has lead-generation tools like forms and landing pages. They are easily customizable and require no prior knowledge.

Key features:

• Drag-and-drop editor for easy template creation.
• Advanced functionality like countdown timers, product blocks, and videos.
• Over 100 pre-made templates you can customize.
• AI Writer can improve your copy before you send.
• Automate personalized email campaigns.
• Ecommerce store owners can connect their site with Moosend to attract more subscribers and convert them with product recommendations and other upsell/cross-sell strategies.

Pro tip: There’s no need to export templates — you can send your email newsletters through the platform. This makes it that much more convenient, in my opinion.

3. Litmus

Price: Try for free; Litmus Core: $500/mo for 5 users; Litmus Enterprise: custom pricing

Best for: A retail brand or business that sells food, clothes, or other products. You'll especially enjoy the countdown timers.

Litmus offers a free email template collection — from newsletter templates to account management templates. All of the templates have been tested with the platform. While you are required to create a Litmus account with your email address to access the templates, the templates themselves are free of charge.

Key features:

• Free email template collection.
• Countdown timers to highlight the urgency of a sale or event.
• Progress bars to encourage brand loyalty.
• Real-time sentiment monitors, which can increase email engagement and revenue.
• AI optimization for your emails.

What I like: With its easy-to-use email builder, you can effortlessly access AI-powered email content optimization capabilities such as suggested subject lines and alternate body text tones.

4. Kit (formerly ConvertKit)

Price: Free and paid options.

Best for: Content creators and influencers looking to grow their email lists.

Kit is a creative email template platform that’s a great option for bloggers, course creators, and more. It comes with email automation tools, sign-up forms, and many more integrations.

To use Kit’s email newsletter templates, you’ll need to sign up for a plan, but the good news is that they offer both free and pro subscriptions. While this platform is more on the creative side, I believe its vast array of templates and tool integrations will help businesses in any industry upgrade their email newsletter.

Key features:

• Easily embed email marketing and subscriber forms anywhere on your WordPress website.
• Tools to help you grow your subscriber lists, send targeted newsletters, increase product sales, and establish membership sites.
• A/B testing capabilities.

What I like: What I find unique about Kit is its ability to use the A/B test function to compare two distinct subject lines. It will split-test the subject lines (15% for each line) for the first 30% of your emails. The other 70% of the emails will have the subject line that receives the most opens.

5. EngageBay

Price: Free; Paid plans start from $12.74/month.

Best for: SMBs, startups, and solopreneurs on a budget.

EngageBay is a free email newsletter template and marketing automation software for small businesses, startups, and solopreneurs. With EngageBay, you get templates for various industries, including real estate, travel and tourism, health and fitness, ecommerce, technology, beauty, and more.

Key features:

• Thousands of beautiful, responsive, and customizable HTML templates for free.
• Templates cover newsletters, welcome campaigns, cart abandonment, cold emails, promotions, events, transactions, sales, and more for each industry.
• Customize the email templates to match your brand.
• A/B testing capabilities.

What I like: The free email newsletter template tool allows you to customize templates to reflect your brand. I like how EngageBay’s templates are directly integrated with their CRM, making managing and personalizing your campaigns easy.

6. ZURB: Foundation for Emails

Price: Free

Best for: Beginners learning to design emails for the first time.

ZURB Studios has five responsive email templates available for free, including the newsletter one above. It has a great, fluid layout you can customize with your own colors, images, and wording.

The template kit comes with a separate CSS stylesheet and HTML file to ease the editing process. Most email code editors will place the CSS in line with the HTML itself after both are uploaded separately.

If you’re going to add images to your newsletter, keep in mind that you’ll have to create a separate folder and compress it with the CSS stylesheet before uploading.

Key features:

• You can see how each template looks on different email clients with the screenshots from each template’s email client tests provided on the site.
• Layouts are optimized for most email clients — except for outdated versions of Outlook
• Provides CSS and HTML files for you to edit.

What I like: I personally find Zurb’s Masterclass best because it’s perfect for beginners to learn how to use the templates. You even get three free tutorials on responsive email design.

Pro tip: Once you’ve selected a template, use HubSpot’s free email marketing software to craft your message and send a newsletter out to the world.

7. Postcards

Price: Free; Plus — $16/month; Pro — $24/month.

Best for: Marketers with little to no coding experience.

Postcards provides some of the best-designed email template builders on the market that are up-to-date and require no previous coding experience.

With Postcards, you can also easily create professional-looking emails with their pre-designed email templates that are customizable.

Their email builder is a game-changer for marketers, designers, and developers who want to streamline their email creation process and focus on what matters: crafting engaging content and design.

Key features:

• No-code email template builder.
• Pre-designed email templates.
• Save previous newsletter emails for future use.

What I like: You know why I think Postcards works so well? It’s a no-code platform with exceptional content history and enterprise-level collaboration features. You can store your work in the detailed version history, allowing you to go back in time and recover a successful email template.

8. Flodesk

Price: Free for 30 days; Professional — $35/month billed annually; Advanced — $59/month billed annually.

Best for: Marketers who leverage segmentation in their emails and who wish to effectively push readers to their ecommerce sites.

Flodesk is an email newsletter design platform with over 3,000 email templates and designs to enhance your email marketing. Moreover, I’m a big fan of their contemporary template designs, which are quite eye-catching.

Key features:

• 3,000+ email templates.
• Connect your ecommerce site to help with automation and analytics.
• Audience segmentation capabilities.
• Its subscription price is a flat fee — no matter how many emails you send, you’ll pay the same price and never have to upgrade your subscription to get all of the perks.

Pro tip: Want to segment your customers when sending them newsletters? Well, Flodesk allows you to sort your audience so that you stay as relevant as possible.

9. 99designs

Price: Free

Best for: Marketers new to email marketing who will appreciate 99designs’ helpful community and intuitive templates.

99designs is a growing online community and collaboration platform for designers and small businesses, and they have a great designer blog and business blog.

As a free offering to their blog readers, they released a set of 45 free email templates — perfect for newsletters, promotional messages, and personalized responses.

Key features:

• 45 free email templates.
• All templates are fully responsive and compatible with all major email clients.
• Connect with an experienced designer if you need help crafting your newsletter template.

Pro tip: What I think is great about 99designs is that you can also start a design contest to test custom email template options from various designers.

10. Beefree

Price: Free and paid options available.

Best for: Businesses of all sizes. From freelancers to enterprise-level organizations who need robust collaboration and email creation features.

I think Beefree is the ultimate solution for creating captivating emails without any coding skills. With its extensive library of over 1,500 responsive templates, you’ll have a wide range of options to bring your email designs to life.

Plus, I love that there’s no sign-up needed. You can just start as is.

Key features:

• 1,500+ responsive email templates.
• Drag-and-drop functionality empowers you to create on-brand newsletter emails easily.
• Collaborative features enable multiple team members to work together seamlessly on email templates.
• Seamless integration with HubSpot allows you to effortlessly export your email designs for a smooth transition.

Pro tip: There’s even an option to hire a designer on the platform who can help you customize your email templates.

11. Campaign Monitor

Price: Free for 30 days, plans start at $10.80/month.

Best for: Businesses of all sizes.

Campaign Monitor is another free email newsletter template and marketing platform. With a variety of email templates for newsletters, welcome emails, and promotional campaigns, Campaign Monitor makes designing emails easy.

It helps you maximize your sales by staying on-brand and creating a seamless customer experience.

Key features:

• Drag-and-drop editor for easy customization.
• Responsive email templates for all marketing needs.
• Can connect to your website or ecommerce site and compile your analytics.
• Tracks when emails are sent, delivered, and opened.

What I like: Campaign Monitor has one of the most unique features I’ve encountered in an email builder. That is, you can lock specific areas of the template so that your team alters only the information you want them to. This protects your brand identity and important business data.

12. MailerLite

Price: Free, paid plans start at $9/month.

Best for: Organizations with customers in various time zones.

MailerLite offers various newsletter templates for promotions, announcements, and more. With its trendy newsletter designs, MailerLite makes sure its customers stay up to date while sending newsletters.

I like that MailerLite provides data insights as well. One thing I find useful about MailerLite is that they will send your emails based on your customers’ time zones, allowing you to send emails that get the most opens. MailerLite also provides A/B split testing tools so you can identify the best version of every email you send.

Key features:

• Customize the templates using either an HTML editor or a drag-and-drop editor.
• Connect your MailerLite account to your website.
• Grow your audience with MailerLite’s landing pages, subscription forms, and pop-ups.
• Optimize email send times based on your receipts’ local time zones.

Pro tip: With the free plan, you can create your own custom templates. However, if you want to access their template options, you’ll have to look into their paid plans.

13. Sender

Price: Free; paid plans start at $7/month.

Best for: Email marketers on a budget and small to medium-sized businesses.

Sender is an all-in-one email and SMS marketing platform for ecommerce and small to medium-sized businesses who want to reach out to their customers at an affordable and accessible price.

Sender provides delivery-friendly text and branded HTML email newsletters to connect with your email subscribers and biggest fans. Sender also allows you to design highly responsive and eye-catching pop-ups and forms to attract sign-ups and execute SMS marketing for higher conversions.

Key features:

• A library of 35+ visually stunning, premium-feel newsletter design templates that are fully customizable to your specific business requirements.
• All templates have responsiveness baked into the design, so your emails are guaranteed to play nicely on mobile devices.
• Send up to 15,000 emails every month to 2,500 contacts at no cost with the Free Forever plan.
• Advanced email marketing features such as segmentation and automation available with premium plans.

What I like: The best part of using Sender is the access to their support team — I was surprised by their swift response time!

14. Constant Contact

Price: Free trial; Pricing starts at $12/mo.

Best for: Non-profit organizations.

Do you run a non-profit? If so, this is the newsletter tool specifically for you. Constant Contact is an email newsletter builder that offers specific templates to help non-profits raise funds and market their missions.

With hundreds of templates to choose from, you’ll be sure to find a design based on the template you need and what type of non-profit you run.

I think an amazing feature from Constant Contact is the business analytics. While using the platform, you can see when emails are sent, delivered, opened, and shared. You will also be able to see top trends and send personalized emails to your donors and subscribers.

Key features:

• Connect Constant Contact to your social media profiles.
• Includes sign-up forms and text message marketing tools.
• Track when emails are sent, delivered, opened, and shared.

What I like: Fundraising is easier with their integration options, such as DonorPerfect, Blackbaud, Neon CRM, and Qgiv. I also found it easy to add any features to promote your events.

15. Getsitecontrol

Price: Free; paid plans start at $19/month.

Best for: Ecommerce email templates and on-site pop-ups in one tool.

Getsitecontrol is an email marketing platform with a strong visual focus — great if you want newsletters to look polished and professional without hiring a designer. It allows you to send promo emails in bulk and build automations, such as welcome sequences, engagement-based and segment-based workflows.

The built-in templates are organized by campaign type and easy to customize, with options to add scrolling text, countdown timers, product cards, and other interactive elements to keep your emails engaging. In addition to email newsletter templates, the platform includes newsletter forms and pop-ups to capture leads and run on-site campaigns.

Key features:

• Categorized email templates for welcome emails, promos, news, and more.
• Intuitive email design editor with full layout and style customization.
• Built-in popups and newsletter signup forms to grow your list.
• Email automations based on user behavior and custom triggers.

Pro tip: Getsitecontrol offers a built-in integration with Hubspot, so you can connect the two platforms within a couple of clicks.

16. Drip

Price: Free to try, then payments based on the number of subscribers, starting at $39/mo.

Best for: Ecommerce brands.

Drip offers email marketing and SMS marketing for ecommerce brands. Drip is a new platform that lets you set up email marketing campaigns through hundreds of customizable templates.

Along with their email newsletter templates, Drip offers excellent CRM tools, data analytics, and trend trackers. As a result, you’ll be able to better market yourself through your campaigns.

Key features:

• Hundreds of customizable templates.
• Integrates with your WordPress website, so you can use Drip without being on Drip.
• It offers various marketing and analytics tools, from email marketing to SMS marketing campaigns.

What I like: You know what I find convenient about Drip? It comes with 150 native integrations, so you can use it with almost any marketing platform.

17. Material Design by Paul Goddard

Price: Free

Best for: Multi-purpose newsletters.

This template is based on Google’s Material Design and has a robotic-retro feel. It is perfect for sending out multi-purpose newsletters featuring new products, events, and other announcements at the same time.

Key features:

• The template offers a timeless, technological look.
• This theme download includes customizable HTML files.
• Has been tested on Litmus, is compatible with all major ESPs, and is responsive.

Pro tip: What I’ve learned is that if you’re having trouble downloading the template, you can access it from Paul’s Google Drive link, too.

18. EmailOctopus

Price: Free

Best for: Product or sale announcements.

EmailOctopus is a marketing service that launched a series of 11 templates that can be used to create newsletters for a variety of industries.

Whether you’re marketing for a fashion brand or a medical supply company, one of the templates will fit your needs.

The templates have the “typical” newsletter look but allow you to add product announcements, feature stories, and CTAs wherever you’d like.

Key features:

• Templates can be modified through any WYSIWYG editor.
• The downloads include the HTML files.
• Templates have been tested through Litmus across all major ESPs.
• Responsive to all screen sizes.

What I like: EmailOctopus is also GDPR compliant, so I find using all their free templates safe.

19. MailBluster

Price: Free and paid options available.

Best for: Companies that want bulk emails on a budget. MailBluster brings you an interactive solution for the best email newsletter design.

Apart from all the essential email marketing features, MailBluster includes a hefty lot of free email newsletter templates.

Choose from a mass collection of their newsletter templates or create from scratch to build your own. Also, you can customize your own template by editing the existing one from their large template gallery.

Key features:

• Powerful drag-and-drop editor.
• Email automation feature.
• Interactive real-time tracking and reporting, list segmentation, A/B testing for email marketers, and more.
• Templates are compatible with all major ESPs.
• One-on-one support, regardless of the price tier you’re in.

What I like: MailBluster offers a free option that allows you to send 62,000 monthly emails and unlimited subscribers. This is probably the best deal for any company wanting bulk email services.

20. Klaviyo

Price: Free for 250 subscribers or less; paid plans start at $45/month and go up from there, depending on the number of subscribers and email sends.

Best for: Ecommerce brands.

Klaviyo has what we're all here for — aesthetically pleasing template designs. But Klaviyo offers more than that.

It pulls helpful data from your tech stack via custom and pre-built integrations from ecommerce platforms such as Shopify and Adobe Commerce. It can also integrate with other platforms like Facebook and Google Ads.

With all this data, Klaviyo can help you create a complete profile of every customer, which will consist of:

• The products/services they’ve ordered from you.
• Their browsing history.
• Product preferences.
• Preferred channels.

I find this super impressive and helpful as a marketer.

Key features:

• Integrate with platforms like Facebook Ads and Google Ads so Klaviyo can take user data to further personalize your emails.
• Compatible with ecommerce platforms and shipping platforms like ShipStation and AfterShip.
• Automate your newsletter process via Klaviyo AI.

What I like: Klaviyo's features make segmentation and personalization simple.

21. Publicate

Price: Free trial, then $49 or $69 per month.

Best for: A wide variety of businesses and organizations. Publicate boasts a wide variety of email templates for just about any industry that you can customize for your brand with their drag-and-drop editor. All their templates are responsive and optimized for speed.

Publicate also integrates with Gmail and Outlook and allows users to view detailed analytics of their emails’ performances.

Key features:

• Drag-and-drop editor.
• Integrates with Gmail and Outlook.
• Features a brand kit to match your brand’s colors, logo, and images.
• Provides an analytics dashboard to see how your emails perform

What I like: I especially enjoy that it includes a Brand Kit — you can upload brand images and logos to be used in your messages.

22. Omnisend

Price: Free to custom enterprise pricing based on the number of contacts. Paid plans start at $11.20/month for 500 contacts.

Best for: Marketers seeking an all-in-one email marketing platform. Omnisend is a marketing automation platform that operates email, push notifications, pop-ups, and more.

I love that you can grow your email list by collecting visitor information right on your website and sending automated email campaigns with Omnisend.

With Omnisend, users can set up segmented campaigns across various channels and track metrics. You can also sync Omnisend to your store for better results.

Key features:

• Hundreds of responsive email templates for different purposes.
• Track the metrics of all your campaigns.
• Connect Omnisend to your website or ecommerce store.

What I like: Omnisend leverages AI to help users come up with subject lines.

1. Adobe Express

Price: Free; Premium unlocks more templates

Best for: Marketers who want design polish without needing a full creative team. Adobe Express gives you access to stunning, ready-to-edit email newsletter templates that feel professionally designed but are easy to customize.

Key features:

• Dozens of email-friendly templates, free and paid.
• Drag-and-drop editor with Adobe Firefly AI tools.
• One-click brand asset application (Premium).
• Export to PDF or image format for use in any ESP.

What I like: Adobe Express hits that sweet spot between quick and high-end, I can get a gorgeous, on-brand newsletter done in under an hour, no designer needed.

2. ActiveCampaign

Price: Starts at $49/month; free trial available

Best for: Email marketers who want design + automation in one platform. ActiveCampaign’s built-in templates let you move fast, personalize deeply, and drop designs right into automations.

Key features:

• Mobile-responsive, professional templates.
• Visual drag-and-drop editor.
• Dynamic content blocks based on behavior or tags.
• Templates connect directly to workflows.

What I like: I love that I can build once and reuse across automations; it saves time and keeps branding consistent.

3. Brevo

Price: Free; paid plans start at $25/month

Best for: Brands that want simple, polished templates with deep personalization. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) offers an intuitive, fast editor and solid template library without overcomplicating the process.

Key features:

• Goal-based email templates (newsletters, promos, etc.).
• Drag-and-drop builder with mobile responsiveness.
• Dynamic content options built in.
• Template saving for reuse.

What I like: Brevo makes segmentation feel less scary. I can personalize at scale, right in the editor.

4. Canva

Price: Free; Pro plan starts at $14.99/month

Best for: Marketers who want creative control without getting technical. Canva’s email-friendly templates let you create eye-catching designs in minutes, even if design isn’t your thing.

Key features:

• Thousands of drag-and-drop templates.
• Built-in brand kit for consistent styling.
• AI tools like Magic Design and text-to-image.
• Export as image, PDF, or HTML.

What I like: I use Canva when I want to feel like a designer without being one. It makes the creative part of email feel like play instead of a chore.

5. Designmodo’s Postcards

Price: Free; Plus starts at $16/month

Best for: Teams who need clean HTML and collaboration-ready templates. Postcards by Designmodo is a no-code email builder that still outputs developer-friendly code.

Key features:

• Modular block-based email builder.
• Clean, exportable HTML.
• Saved content blocks for fast reuse.
• Real-time preview and team sharing.

What I like: I turn to Postcards when I want control over structure and visuals and know someone’s going to need that HTML clean and client-ready.

6. GetResponse

Price: Free for 30 days; paid plans start at $19/month

Best for: Campaign builders who want fast starts with flexible personalization. GetResponse’s template library is goal-driven and easy to customize for just about any campaign.

Key features:

• Templates by goal (newsletters, promos, etc.).
• Drag-and-drop editor with built-in responsiveness.
• Dynamic content personalization.
• Save custom templates for recurring sends.

What I like: I go to GetResponse when I want to launch fast and still look like I planned for weeks. It’s efficient without looking “template-y.”

7. HubSpot

Price: Free

Best for: Marketers who want copy structure and strategy in one. HubSpot’s email copy templates give you more than filler text. They’re strategic frameworks that get results.

Key features:

• Templates for all campaign types: welcome, cart, re-engagement.
• Easy to adapt to your tone and goals.
• Modular copy elements you can reuse.
• Built-in access from HubSpot CRM if you’re a user.

What I like: I use these when I’m stuck at the blank screen stage. They’re smart, adaptable, and help me write faster and better.

8. Mailchimp

Price: Free for up to 500 contacts; paid plans start at $13/month

Best for: Marketers who want fast, polished emails with smart personalization. Mailchimp gives you flexible templates and dynamic tools that scale as your list grows.

Key features:

• Pre-designed templates for different use cases.
• Drag-and-drop editor with dynamic content options.
• Save and reuse custom layouts.
• Built-in preview and testing tools.

What I like: I’ve used Mailchimp for years. When I need something fast and familiar that just works, it’s still one of my top choices.

9. Microsoft Office Templates

Price: Free

Best for: Corporate or regulated teams who draft and present before building. Microsoft Word and PowerPoint templates are still go-to tools when collaboration happens offline.

Key features:

• Email copy decks in Word with tracked changes.
• Presentation-style templates in PowerPoint.
• Easy to annotate for compliance or reviews.
• No sign-in or new software required.

What I like: I lean on these when I’m working with traditional teams. Sometimes a well-formatted Word doc is the fastest way to get sign-off.

10. Stripo

Price: Free; paid plans start at $15/month

Best for: Power users who want creative control and export-ready HTML. Stripo balances visual editing with advanced email code flexibility. It’s great for teams with mixed skill sets.

Key features:

• Drag-and-drop + HTML code view.
• Pre-built blocks and reusable modules.
• Exports to 70+ ESPs or clean HTML.
• Responsive testing and previewing.

What I like: I use Stripo when I want beautiful emails and bulletproof rendering. It gives me creative control without sacrificing tech reliability.

11. Google Docs

Price: Free

Best for: Teams who need to collaborate on copy before jumping into design. Google Docs isn’t a template builder, but it’s essential for drafting, reviewing, and locking in messaging.

Key features:

• Clean space for writing and editing copy.
• Real-time collaboration and version tracking.
• Great for building copy decks and content maps.
• Can be saved and reused for recurring sends.

What I like: I start every newsletter here. It’s where I think clearly, collaborate smoothly, and finalize copy before it ever touches design.

How to Customize Email Newsletter Templates to Increase Engagement

Now that you’ve got the perfect template, let’s talk about what really makes it work: customization.

A pre-designed template is just a starting point. How you tailor it to your audience, message, and brand? That’s what determines if it gets skimmed ... or clicked.

Here are eight customizations I recommend (and actually use with my clients) to increase engagement:

1. Make your headline earn the scroll.

Your headline is your opening act — make it strong. It should guide the reader into the message and set the tone. Use clear, benefit-focused copy. And don’t be afraid of a little wit, if it matches your brand.

Here are some additional tips on writing strong email subject lines, preheader text, and headlines.

2. Apply your brand styling (without overdoing it).

Templates are a blank canvas, but your email shouldn’t feel generic. Swap in your brand colors, fonts, logo, and voice. But resist the urge to overload it with every visual asset you’ve got. Think consistency, not chaos.

Check out my email design tips for a deeper dive.

3. Use visual hierarchy to guide the eye.

Size, spacing, contrast, and structure help your reader absorb the message quickly. Break up sections with bold headlines, generous padding, and high-impact visuals. If everything’s “important,” nothing is.

4. Add images that pull their weight.

Avoid decorative filler. Every image should reinforce your message or make the content easier to digest, whether it’s a chart, product photo, or behind-the-scenes team shot. And yes, they must be mobile-friendly.

5. Write like a human (not a brochure).

Keep your copy brief, useful, and conversational. Get to the point fast and format it for scanners. I like short paragraphs, bullets, bolding, and clear CTAs. (Speaking of…)

6. Design CTAs that actually get clicked.

Use a contrasting color, strategic placement, and direct language. “Read more,” “Shop now,” or “Get the full story” all work, if the rest of the email builds the case for it.

Need more? I go deep on CTA design in this post from the Email Optimization Shop blog.

7. Test it like it’s going to your boss.

Before you hit send, preview it in multiple email clients, test the mobile view, and check that every link works. Then send it to yourself, or better yet, A/B test layout and subject line combos over time.

8. Know when done is better than perfect.

Sometimes, the difference between an email that performs and one that never gets sent is just finishing the thing. Stick to your core message, keep it clean, and ship it.

Want a visual example of what this looks like in practice? You’ll find plenty on my blog over at EmailOpShop.com. I break down real newsletters with annotated screenshots, dos and don’ts, and the occasional love letter to a perfectly placed preheader.

Wrapping It Up: From Unimpressed to Unmissable

I started this piece by admitting that I get a lot of newsletters, and very few impress me. After walking through all these template options and customization tips, I hope you can see why. A good newsletter isn’t just about content, it’s about packaging: the design, structure, and clarity that make your message easy to absorb and hard to ignore.

The truth is, templates aren’t shortcuts; they’re scaffolding. They free you up to focus on what matters most: the offer you’re making, the story you’re telling, and the connection you’re building with your audience.

I’ve learned (sometimes the hard way) that when design and copy work together, newsletters stop being “just another email” and start being something subscribers actually look forward to. And that’s the bar we should all be aiming for.

So my advice? Pick a template, make it yours, keep it clean, and send it out into the world. Because the only thing worse than a bad newsletter is the great one that never got sent.

Editor's Note: The article was originally published in December 2018 and has since been updated for comprehensiveness.